For a musician, various factors contribute to the final compositional product. Instruments, vocal technique, and the overall rhythm of the song inevitably combine to create an original piece. Yet these factors are all stylistic—what about the content? What is the song going to be about?
In the world of composition, a common solution for these questions is to write and sing about personal experience. This technique results in a common musical theme of relationships, especially romantic ones. While romance certainly occupies an important part of people’s lives, another type of relationship carries a similar level of, if not more, significance: culture.
The pastimes associated with culture, such as food, tradition, dress, and most importantly for composers, language and music, often carve out an inevitably large portion of one’s life experience. This influence drives many singers to engage with their own cultures in innovative, lyrical ways. Here are five artists, all from different parts of the world, who do just that.
1. Lianne La Havas
As a half-Jamaican, half-Greek singer-songwriter born and raised in London, Lianne La Havas possesses an ample amount of cultural insights to incorporate into her music. Her most recent album, appropriately titled Blood, contains several songs in which La Havas explores her identity. In “Green & Gold,” she sings about growing into both cultures to finally emerge as a self-assured woman. The colors of the Jamaican flag inspired the song’s title, and the “ancient stone” La Havas refers to in the chorus echoes back to Greek history. The most poignant line in the song, however, arrives at the end of the chorus where La Havas realizes, “Those eyes you gave to me / they help me see / where I come from.”
2. Jason Chen
YouTube witnessed the rising popularity of Jason Chen, who first began to post videos on his main channel in 2007 of him singing covers to popular songs. These song covers did not only consist of American Top 40 hits, however, but also of Mandarin titles. As Chen began to release original music, he would release an accompanying version of his song in Mandarin. Due to the enthusiastic responses he received from his subscribers whenever he released a Mandarin cover or original song on his primary channel, Chen started JasonChenAsia in 2010. On this account, Chen freely posts covers of Mandarin songs, as well as his own cover mashups of Top 40 tracks, such as Justin Bieber’s “Sorry.” Chen’s seamless integration of his parents’ mother tongue throughout his musical career demonstrates his commitment to and grasp of his culture.
3. Yuna
Born and raised in the state of Kedah in Malaysia, singer-songwriter Yuna has released three international albums as well as two albums in her native country. As she continues to gain popularity in the United States with her newest album Chapters that features her Usher duet titled “Crush,” Yuna’s Malaysian songs continue to garner over 300,000 views on YouTube. Although Yuna now permanently bases herself in Los Angeles, she continues to hold onto certain aspects of her Muslim and Malay upbringing. Despite pressures from both the Malay and US media to remove her hijab, or religious headscarf, Yuna remains firm in her decision to cover her hair and dress in a manner that is both stylish and modest. The balance Yuna maintains between her Malay language, Islamic dress, and recent move to the US demonstrates her commitment to staying true to herself as her talent and fame grows with each day.
4. Renata Flores
At only fourteen years old, Peruvian singer Renata Flores is already creating a cultural impact in her hometown of Ayacucho, located in the Andes, as well as in South America as a whole. Last summer, Flores uploaded a cover of Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Her version of the song stood out not only for its exceptional vocals, but for the fact that Flores sang the track in Quechua, an endangered and stigmatized language spoken by indigenous peoples across Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Argentina. Flores’ reclamation of Quechua inspired tons of Peruvian youth—many of whom attend her school—to begin to shake off the shame associated with Quechua and instead embrace their ancestral language. Since her Michael Jackson cover, Flores has also released a Quechua version of “Fallin’” by Alicia Keys, as well as an original song in both Spanish and Quechua.
5. Rihanna
With the insurmountable fame she has garnered in America ever since her 2005 single “Pon De Replay,” it can be tempting to forget that Rihanna was in fact not born and raised in the country. Rather, she hails from Barbados, a Caribbean island. Her heritage is evident in her accent, which emerges slightly in her music, but has overall been a factor she has had to control for interview and publicity purposes. Yet with the expansion of her music and business empire, Rihanna has demonstrated that she wields creative freedom over both her image and songs. In 2010, she released “Man Down” as a single off of her album Loud. The track centers on a Caribbean beat, and Rihanna hones her island accent, especially throughout the chorus. More recently, the first single off her latest album ANTI also contains significant Caribbean influence. “Work,” which features Drake, achieved chart success, but its lyrics but also drew criticism and confusion from listeners. Yet despite this feedback that failed to take into account Rihanna’s usage of creole in the song, “Work” continues to reign over radio stations and playlists across the country.
As a singer, musician, writer, or producer, one may internalize mainstream pressures that encourage a concealment of familial, cultural ties. The multicultural musical choices of Lianne La Havas, Jason Chen, Yuna, Renata Flores, and Rihanna, however, prove that it is possible lead an artistic lifestyle that embraces rather than rejects one’s heritage.
